Squares of oven-baked "potato pancake," Lithuanian kugele is made with finely grated, not shredded, potato. Large old potatoes are great to use up in kugele. Small, new potatoes aren't recommended.
In the 1930s, my great-grandfather and grandfather would drive out to a farm in Scarborough to buy 20 lb sacks of potatoes that would be kept in the dirt-floored basement of the house Great-Grandpa had built on Aldwych Avenue in Toronto. The potatoes, stored away from the coal chute, would keep all winter in the cold cellar.
To make kugele, Granny (my mother's grandmother) peeled, halved and then used a fine hand grater to grate the raw potatoes into a large bowl. She'd mix in eggs and salt with a wooden spoon. She'd melt butter in a black cast iron skillet on the stove, then add the raw potato batter to the pan, which was then put in a hot oven to bake. Adding the batter to the hot butter gave her kugele a crispy crust.
Aunt Annie (Granny's cousin) made her kugele with bacon. Chopped bacon was fried in a skillet, then she'd melt a lot of butter with the bacon grease. Grated potato was mixed with egg and salt and poured over the bacon and fat in the pan. Annie liked to add chopped ham or pieces of cooked sausage to her kugele as well.
Marilyn (my mom) makes her kugele in a blender, grating the potato mixture in batches. She says her blender can't grate the potato unless she puts a little water in the blender before adding the chopped potato. So that the potato batter isn't too runny, she then removes the grated potato and drains out the excess water into a bowl through a fine sieve. The water is discarded but the separated potato starch is added back into the potato mixture and mixed in with the egg. She doesn't use hot milk, flour or onion in her kugele battter, but likes to add diced, fried bacon. She uses a non-stick baking pan, and melts butter in the pan in the oven before adding the grated potato mixture to the hot pan.
Mom was told that the secret to keeping the potatoes from baking with a greyish tinge is to add hot milk to the batter, as in the recipe below.
To reduce the amount of oil or butter used, some people pour the raw batter over lightly greased parchment paper, but the kugele won't bake with a crispy crust this way.
When making a lot of kugele for large events, cooks at the Lithuanian Hall sometimes added instant potato flakes to the grated potato to cut down on preparation time. I don't think the end result is as good as when fresh grated potato is used.
To make the doubled recipe in the 9x13" pan, I use an 11-cup food processor with the chopping/dicing blade, not the shredder disc. Using a food processor instead of a blender, I don't need to add extra water or drain the grated potato like my mom does. I do add the hot milk to keep the kugele a nice colour. My kugele might not have exactly the same texture as a finely hand-grated or blender-grated kugele, but I like it and using only one processor bowl speeds up clean-up.
I recently made kugele using ten large, new yellow potatoes. The kugele had a nice golden color. I used a 9 x 13 inch glass lasagna pan, and followed some online advice to pour in about 1/4 inch of vegetable oil before adding the raw potato batter to the cold pan and baking in a preheated 400 degree F convection oven. This experiment won't be repeated. The kugele instantly started to "fry" in the oil (there was too much!) Although there were crispy bits (mostly stuck to the pyrex dish) the end result was too oily and I put the leftover kugele on a paper-toweled lined plate to absorb the oil. Next time I'm melting a reasonable amount of butter in my large iron skillet over the stove, adding the raw batter into the hot skillet, and then baking it in the oven the way Granny did.
Note: You may have to adjust baking time depending on the pan you use and the thickness of the batter in the pan.
Blender Kugele
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- 5-6 potatoes peeled, washed, roughly diced.
- 1 egg
- 4 Tbsp flour
- 2 tsp salt
- vegetable oil or butter
- 2 slices bacon, fried (optional)
- sour cream (optional)
Fry bacon,
Put the egg, flour and salt in a blender. Mix. Stop.
Add diced potatoes. Grate. Stop.
Blend again to combine.
Dice the fried bacon and stir in (optional).
Generously grease a 9 inch square pan, put pan in oven to heat up a little.
Pour raw potato batter in the hot pan.
Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes.
Reduce heat to 375 degrees. Bake 45 minutes.
Cut into squares and remove from the pan with a spatula.
Serve hot with sour cream and bacon.
Kugele (Double Recipe)
- 10 large white or yellow potatoes, washed, peeled, diced
- 1 medium yellow onion, peeled, chopped (optional)
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2 cup hot milk
- 8 Tbsp flour
- 3 eggs
- 5-6 slices fried bacon, cut in small pieces (optional)
- vegetable oil or butter to generously grease pan
- sour cream and chives (optional)
Blender or small Food Processor Instructions:
Separate potato pieces into 3 portions.
In a blender, combine 1 egg, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 cup milk, 3 Tbsp flour.Add 1/3 of the potato, grate.
Pour into a large bowl.
In blender combine 1 egg, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 cup milk, 3 Tbsp flour.
Add 1/3 of the potatoes, grate.
Pour into the bowl with the first batch.
Combine, in the blender, the last egg, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp. pepper, 2 Tbsp flour.
Add the chopped onion and the rest of the diced potatoes, grate.
Stir this last batch into the bowl with the first two batches.
Stir this last batch into the bowl with the first two batches.
Stir in chopped fried bacon if using.
Pour raw potato mixture into hot greased 9x13" pan or large cast iron skillet
Pour raw potato mixture into hot greased 9x13" pan or large cast iron skillet
Bake 15 min. at 400 degrees F.
Reduce heat to 375 degrees F and bake 45 minutes
Serve hot topped with sour cream.
Reduce heat to 375 degrees F and bake 45 minutes
Serve hot topped with sour cream.
11-cup Food Processor Instructions: Use the chopping blade, process 2/3 of the potatoes, add all the milk and flour, beaten eggs and seasonings, process, add the rest of the potatoes and onion, process, pour into oiled pan.
Bacon-Lover's Variation: Try adding chopped, cooked bacon to the potato mixture before you bake it in the oven. Cook more bacon to serve with the sour cream topping.
Left-overs: Kugele re-heats well in the microwave. Before microwave ovens, left-over kugele was enjoyed cold or cut into thick "fingers" and fried in a pan on the stove in melted butter.
Left-overs: Kugele re-heats well in the microwave. Before microwave ovens, left-over kugele was enjoyed cold or cut into thick "fingers" and fried in a pan on the stove in melted butter.
